NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM TRENTON

December 4, 2010 through May 29, 2011 This publication accompanies the exhibition:

on view at the NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM, TRENTON from December 4, 2010 through May 29, 2011

Funding for I AM THE COSMOS has been provided, in part, by the Friends of the New Jersey State Museum through the Lucille M. Paris Fund.

Guest Curator: Sara Lynn Henry Editor: Margaret M. O’Reilly Catalogue Design Julianne Domm

© 2010/2011 New Jersey State Museum, Trenton Essayist and Artists retain all copyright to their statement and images of their works. All rights reserved.

COVER IMAGE: AMY CHENG, I Am the Cosmos, 2010, oil and wax on wood panel, Courtesy of the Artist

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, digital or mechanical, without written permission of the publisher, except for portions used by reviewers or by educators for classroom use.

Reproduction, including downloading of Rockburne works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM TRENTON

December 4, 2010 through May 29, 2011 STATE OF NEW JERSEY Chris Christie Governor Kim Guadagno Lieutenant Governor/Secretary of State

BOARD OF TRUSTEES BOARD OF TRUSTEES Adam Kaufman Mary Guess Flamer, Ed.D. President President Steven M. Richman Ian Burrow, Ph.D., RPA Vice President Vice President Dr. Albert L. Rosenthal Gabrielle Deen Dorothy Bartaris Secretary Treasurer Janet Bickal Melanie Boston Karen S. Ali Mary Guess Flamer Jennifer Bredin Secretary Margaret M.M. Koo Howard Cohn Dr. Jane L. Rohlf Larry G. Conti Georgia T. Schley Jane Curry Dolores Yazujian Erin Forrey Janice Gavin Ex-Officio Members Jamie Griswold Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno Ingrid Hammond Chair Susan Palsir Huber Jacqueline Johnson Assemblyman Reed Gusciora Garvester Kelley Assemblywoman Denise M. Coyne Linda Maiden Senator Shirley K. Turner Beverly Nester Ray Nowak Dorothy Plohn Jaclyn Polin Steven M. Richman H. L. Boyer Royal Kathryn Ryan Janet Sheppard Pam Switlik Julie Dixon Thomas Dolores Yazujian

Nicole Jannotte Executive Director INTRODUCTION

ince it was established in 1895, the New Jersey State Museum has developed collections, exhibitions and programs in broad and varied areas disciplines including archaeology, cultural history, ethnology, fine art and natural history. While there have S been a number of projects that have brought two or more of these areas together, this is the first time that the fine arts and astronomy have together been the focus of an exhibition. Our recently renovated, state-of-the-art planetarium brings the universe right to visitors through exciting, state-of-the-art, full dome digital video presentations. Now, this exhibition allows our visitors to see the ways contemporary artists interpret these new images of the universe which have been made possible by the Hubble Space Telescope and other explorations like it. Works came from artists as near as Bound Brook, NJ and as far away as Seoul, South Korea. This is an exciting time for space exploration and for the visual arts, and we are so pleased to be able to bring this fascinating subject to New Jerseyans. This exciting work has been explored by guest curator Dr. Sara Lynn Henry, Drew University Professor of Art History, Emerita, and NEH Distinguished Teaching Professor of Humanities, Emerita. Dr. Henry has published extensively on Paul Klee, and in concerned with art, nature and science matters, as well as the East-West aesthetic dialogue. The State Museum has been honored and energized to work with such a well-respected scholar. Through this exhibition and the insightful essay included here, she has clarified for New Jerseyans this exciting new mode of art. This exhibition would not be possible without the generosity of the many artists, institutions, galleries and private collectors |who have participated in, and generously lent works to, this project. We are so pleased to acknowledge the artists David Ambrose, Alice Aycock, C Bangs, Paul Brach, Amy Cheng, Kwang-Young Chun, Russell Crotty, David Hardy, Carter Hodgkin, Ellen Levy, Robert Longo, David Mann, Matthew Ritchie, Dorothea Rockburne, Todd Siler, Barbara Takenaga, John Torreano, Sarah Walker and Marlene Tseng Yu. We extend our gratitude to our colleagues at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Denise Bibro Fine Art, Inc., New York, NY; Estate of Paul Brach and Flomenhaft Gallery, New York, NY; Feature Inc., New York, NY; Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, NY; Kim Foster Gallery, New York, NY; Green Van Doren, New York, NY and Rockburne Studio, New York, NY; McKenzie Fine Art, New York, NY; DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY; Pierogi Gallery, New York, NY; Salomon Contemporary, New York, NY; and Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York, NY. The exhibition also benefited from the generosity of the E. Buk Collection, New York, NY; Ben Evans, Los Angeles, CA; and a Private Collection, Woodstock, NY. Moreover, of course, the project is enhanced by the inclusion of images from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Hubble European Space Agency (ESA) and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI). This exhibition has been supported in part by the Friends of the New Jersey State Museum through the Lucille M. Paris Fund. For over 40 years, the Friends and Museum have participated in an extraordinary public/private partnership. The Friends, a private 501(c)(3) organization, provide fundraising, advocacy, marketing and volunteer support to the Museum. It is through the generous support of corporate, foundation and individual members that the Friends are able to help the Museum meet its mission. We extend our thanks to the Friends Board and their Executive Director Nicole Jannotte for their support of this and all Museum projects. Staff in the Fine Art Bureau – Registrar Jenny Martin-Wicoff, Preparator Henry Hose and Office Assistant Mary Ann Argust – handled the myriad details of correspondence, loans, transportation, installation and more that go into realizing a project of this variety. Additionally, Exhibits Supervisor Elizabeth Beitel and the team in the Exhibits Bureau – Jenaro Vasquez, Richard Large and Melissa Gabel – worked tirelessly to ensure the needs of the project were met. Assistant Curator of the Planetarium, Jay Schwartz, has been an enthusiastic supporter of this project from the beginning. We extend our gratitude to all. On behalf of the State Museum, we acknowledge and extend our appreciation to Governor Chris Christie and Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno for their ongoing dedication to arts and culture throughout the state, and in particular for their support of the New Jersey State Museum.

ERIC PRYOR MARGARET M. O’REILLY Executive Director, New Jersey State Museum Curator of Fine Art, New Jersey State Museum

3 4 Astrophysicists say that we are all made of old stars [originating] from the time of the Big Bang. When I look at my hands I know I am made of old stars, and that I am part of a vast universe.

ARTIST DOROTHEA ROCKBURNE

Most of what is currently known about the universe was not fully realized thirty years ago. Most of what can now be seen of the universe could not be seen thirty years ago. A large cohort of artists, now in their 40s and older, has resonated with recent discoveries about the stars, galaxies, deep space, cosmic origins and also with the vast pico-world found under the electron microscope and within atoms themselves (“pico” is just one trillionth of a meter in size!). Certainly, the stunning photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope and from space probes have made the actualities of deep space phenomena become real to the layperson. For some artists, recent discoveries have inflected directions they were already undertaking; for others it has opened up whole new terrains. What is the context for all this?

THE MIND-BLOWING DISCOVERIES changes, and possible demise – insights that have been ABOUT THE UNIVERSE relevant to works in this exhibition. p until the l920s, the universe was considered by most to consist of just our own Milky Way Galaxy. That was it! As it is now understood, about 13.7 billion years ago, a fierce U Then, as announced in 1925, Edwin Hubble, using a new vacuum energy pressed space outward from a single point and huge telescope, discovered that the elliptical and spiral subatomic particles burst forth. Matter and energy were so smudges in the night sky were indeed distant galaxies, rather densely packed that “one teaspoon of space contained than just nearby nebulae (clouds of gas and dust). Some 100 trillion trillion trillion pounds!”1 It is not known why this astronomers had wondered about the existence of this larger Inflationary Big Bang occurred or what might lie beyond our universe, but now there was observational proof. Hubble also burgeoning observable universe, but the rapid mechanisms learned that these galaxies are moving away from us in all of origins have been partially understood through experiments directions; in other words, the universe was expanding (as later in particle physics. Within the first 100 microseconds the basic understood, space itself is growing larger). By reeling this forces were articulated and the primary particles of matter – expansion backwards and knowing the theories of some earlier quarks, photons, electrons and neutrinos, then protons and scientists, Alpher and Gamow in 1948 proposed that the origin neutrons – were formed. By the first three minutes, some of the of the universe could best be explained by a Big Bang. This particles fused into hydrogen, then helium plasma, but not yet theory was confirmed in the 1960s when the ubiquitous full atoms. It was only about 400,000 years later, after the microwave background was discovered. These microwaves temperature of the expanding universe cooled enough, that were a form of light that traveled and lengthened in wave atoms began to form. It was at this point that the haze of length 13 billion years from the past through the expanding colliding, unattached particles cleared and the first light waves universe. This radiation is no less than the embers of the Big were released as what is now known is the cosmic microwave Bang! What this all shows is that the universe as we know it, is background. Minuscule variations of temperature density (only both vast and finite. It is subject to staggering forces, dramatic a few micro degrees), discovered in 1992 through a NASA

5 study, were decidedly the seeds for stars, then galaxies. By consider that our universe may be just one of many expanding about 200 million years after the Big Bang (ABB), the densest bubble universes. Maybe our cosmos is not all there is! clumps of matter began to collapse into themselves to create brilliant stars, which lit “up the sky like thousands of jewels.”2 THE ARTISTS: WHY AND HOW THEY DO IT. Stars were huge, lived briefly and then exploded in supernova THE “I” IN THE COSMOS explosions, which sent the elements forged in their fiery n both science and art, the mind plays an exploratory, furnaces out into the environment as gas and dust, the seedbed evaluative and structuring role. The scientist is constrained for new stars – the same way star birth still occurs. By one I by the quest for verifiable systematic formulations of the billion years ABB, the myriads of stars began to cluster into workings of the physical world, while artists have more freedom infant galaxies, with frequent galaxy collisions, prodigious star to explore subjective analogies, symbols and personal birth and explosions. At about five billion years ABB, mature, expression as they develop their art. They can draw upon the more stable galaxies formed, including our own Milky Way, workings of their mind, experience, feelings and even their with our sun and solar system in one of its spiral arms. artistic means to create their formulations. In relation to their art, Clusters of galaxies and super clusters came together to create they frequently gaze far out to wonder about what is beyond webs of galaxies throughout the universe. It is now estimated the exploratory self in this vast universe. As Russell Crotty put it, that there are up to 400 billion stars in our own galaxy and “Looking up at the sky can be dizzying when you are in a dark over 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. We as location – deep time passing all around you, the Milky Way humans are merely a “mote in the eye of the universe.” We are passing above your head, and yet you are part of it.” Crotty all indeed made out of this original star stuff created billions of is aware that the telescope he uses for his art exploration is ago, yet if the life of the universe were conceived of as a day “like a time machine….When you’re looking at some galaxies, long, then we humans have only existed for two seconds.3 you’re looking at something 50 million light years away.”6 All of these artists want to bring about that sense of deep time Out of these discoveries, yet more mysteries are being probed. and space in their art. First, the existence of dark matter was posited in the 1930s and has been more fully explored since the 1980s to explain how Is this contemporary art therefore subjectively arbitrary in galaxies cohere and orbit at the speeds they do (among other relation to natural phenomena? The answer is a decided “no.” observational puzzles). Dark matter (not emitting or reflecting Although all the artists eschew literal demonstrations of scientific light) penetrates galaxies, extending beyond these galaxies material, they wish to resonate with the content and implications as huge halos of some as-yet mysterious gravitationally effective of these new discoveries. Artist Dorothea Rockburne seeks the deep substance. Second was the 1998 discovery that the expansion structures and geometries of natural phenomena. She is excited of the universe is accelerating. In order to explain this, there about the new insights concerning cosmic processes, such as must be some sort of dark energy, countering gravity, star birthing or the concept of light as both particle and wave, propelling the universe outward at a faster and faster pace.4 or even the notion of the origin of “universes.” She wants to This being so, at some point in the future, the speed will convey these, rather than depict them by creating parallel become even more than the speed of light, and “we” would not structures and processes. John Torreano wishes to take people be able to see any of the galaxies that are beyond our own where they cannot go themselves, to make the unimaginable galaxy group (which would have already merged into a single something that can be experienced. He goes so far as to entity anyway).5 The “we” is a conjecture, since our own sun translate the feeling of an event through his own body and will have heated up, sizzled the Earth and died some billions of through the materiality of the work of art. He enacts gestural years before that. Extrapolating this cosmic expansion out into strokes and applies tangible materials, such as glass gems as time, some astrophysicists surmise that the universe may end in stars or painted wooden balls as galactic stuff. Marlene Tseng Yu a Big Chill with the dispersal and decay of all matter. Some is more inner-spirit oriented. She wants her own personal vitality

6 and painting process to resonate with the dynamic movements Outer-space references are multiple, suggesting, not only suns of nature. For Sarah Walker, the creative process can be mind and planets, but abstracted star fields, nebulae, comets and travel as much as space-time travel. Her multidimensional cosmic webs of macro and micro phenomena. Spheres expand images suggest diagrammed neural pathways as much as deep and explode with energy, radically moving out into space. space grids (with references also to geology, architecture and Some spherical forms are created from concentrations of technology. Some artists, including David Ambrose, Amy Cheng, progressively larger forms, a self-similar replication, radically David Mann and Barbara Takenaga, extrapolate imaginative dynamic inflating, suggestive of a Big Bang. Fiery clouds of luminous, patterns out of seed ideas. Two artists have a critical edge to exploding atmospheres give birth to metaphoric stars. Galaxies their outlooks. Ellen Levy wants to deal with “the sensual spin and points of light congregate in fathomless dark black dimensions of science and its generative processes,” but also and blue spaces. Movements are elliptical, spiral and curved wishes to make us aware of “the drastic ramifications of the (it is known today that, astronomically, things move in curved application of science and technology” to our natural world.7 paths, rather than the more static, idealized diagonals and Alice Aycock considers that the more the sciences reveal perfect circles of the earlier art). There are even indications of about the miniscule place of the human in the whole, the more human space travel. contemporary persons have retreated to comforts of the everyday, such as Campbell’s soup cans, and also, for STARGAZING many, to the assurances of traditional anthropomorphic raditional star gazing tracked major sky configurations religious viewpoints.8 using such instruments as an armillary (delineating the T zones of the celestial sphere around the earth), a tellurion COSMIC ART, THEN AND NOW (demonstrating the movement of the earth around the sun), arlier 20th century precedents for this 21st century cosmic handheld celestial maps (e.g. the Barrett-Serviss Star and Planet art exist in the work of Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, Finder), and light shows of the changing constellations (as the E and also in the works of a few artists from the Abstract Bailey’s Astral Lantern) – all of which are shown in this Expressionist movement including Adolph Gottlieb, Richard exhibition as sculptural objects, as well as compelling scientific Pousette-Dart, Gordon Onslow Ford and Mark Tobey. The instruments. By contrast, since the 1990s, it has been one huge images these artists present use flattened signs for solar and step directly into space through the images of the Hubble moon shapes and small dots or gestural marks for stars and Telescope, which have thrust us close up to the stars, the star energies. Space is generally flat or a colored scrim. galaxies and cosmic processes. One can see several Hubble At most, there might be a barely shaped aura around celestial photographs in the exhibition. As a result, the current discs. The abstracted references of the works signal suns, experience of stargazing in art is direct, enveloping and moons, planets, stars and night skies -– our closer star frequently experientially layered. The viewer is thrust into the terrain – often with an earthly gravity as a grounding point. space of the stars themselves. Russell Crotty directly observes the The artists tended to be more mystical than outer space stars through his own telescope, while perched on a ladder in oriented. As Pousette-Dart wrote, art is a “transcendental his homemade observatory, making notations in his language of form, spirit, harmony” telling us there is “one sketchbook – no camera, no digital enhancements, no universal eternal presence.”9 computer sources. He then delicately sketches his found configurations onto a paper-covered globe by tiny, inked By contrast, these 21st century artists plunge the viewer into striations of sky and wavy lines around each star – all a vast new terrain of space and time. The viewer hovers and shimmering with sky energy. His large star cluster, M37 in moves within the universe freed from any earthly grounding. Auriga (2008), envelops us, as if we were located on a micro Images are more three-dimensional and tangible, more spot on his globe, experiencing the configuration close up as it astronomically informed by newly available sources. scatters out around the whole earth sphere. There is both

7 intimacy and vastness at the same time. In Starfield #4 (2006), (2010), inspired by a NASA image of the origins of the Robert Longo propels us directly into a vast starry depths with universe, presents three-dimensional white balls edged by white no grounding or bearings, where we experience a myriad of and pink auras and glass gems, emerging from the thick black dazzling, peppered points of light scattered through a charcoal stuff of galactic origins. Also seeking the birthing heart of space black sky. Some stars seem nearer and brighter, some more is Dorothea Rockburne’s Magellanic Magnification II (1994-98), faint in a measureless regression. Elements of the image have with its dazzling nebular white light, shaded to yellow and red been found digitally, then enhanced and vividly altered. In this heat, which hits the viewer like the shock of a sonic boom. This nearly 8’ tall work on paper, the deep star space engulfs the heart of light, shaped like a pod, is suggestive of seed origins viewer, extending from below our feet to far above our heads. and also of fundamental cosmic elliptical movement. The night sky can also be a place for passing thoughts, dreams and the sometimes uneasy sense of inchoate transmigrations. The power of a whole galaxy is seen in Marlene Tseng Yu’s Presented within a sky chart circle is Alice Aycock’s Things Pass by Whirlpool I (1996), a spiral type, like our own Milky Way, in the Night: Murmuration 1 (2009). Strange and unnerving, here confounded with an aqueous whirlpool, the actual name the image seems at once murmurings passing through the Milky of a nearby galaxy.11 The spiral form can symbolize growth Way and also a hovering flock of propeller birds, beating their and the evolution of the universe and is found in many objects flight through outer space. (The term “murmuration” means macro and micro in nature. Yu’s glowing yellow center suggests both murmured sounds and a flock of starlings.) Metaphysical the dense pack stars that might astronomically be at the center longing is found in a late work, Star Map (2005), by Paul Brach, location of a galactic black hole, but also could be reflected sun where a luminous vermillion orb is split open to reveal on water. Her clouds are stellar, earthly sky and painterly all constellated stars in the distance, along with stars in the at once. Yu resonates with the experience of Chinese qi, the foreground, as well as on the star itself – all is holistic energy. universal vital energy in mind and matter, which is constantly changing from one form into another. Barbara Takenaga also uses COSMIC ORIGINS a galactic spiral to structure her image Last Blue Wheel (2008), he birthing of stars, galaxies and even of the cosmos itself here with a double reversed spin. The image articulates a are prime similes. Some images start from Hubble seeming Big Bang expansion, lighter and hotter in the center, T photographs, some invent their own emergent patterns, cooler and darker as it moves out. Like the universe, the process others seek pure light and radiant energy. John Torreano’s three is inflationary rather than a burst causing an empty center. The works are viscerally transformed Hubble and NASA images. development moves out through the replication of similar forms A Star(s) is Born (2007), fashioned from a Hubble image of the from smaller to larger, evolving by a random self-organization, Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy, shows new stars emerging guided by her subliminal rules as to sequences, encounters and from illuminated nebular clouds. The light opens into a sky blue, occasional breakthroughs. Takenaga has had an interest in suggestive of a Baroque ceiling painting, the opening gently Hubble images as also those of the electron microscope, as is articulated by a centered subliminal cross, formed where the the case with David Mann as well. Mann’s resulting images are four panels meet. Applied faux gems glitter as you walk by. tangible, biological, yet also stellar-like constellations of radiant Torreano’s Orion’s Edge (2009), using Hubble images as a light. He conflates the macro and the micro. His Light Year starting point, is ripped open by painterly strokes of exploding (2008) is illumined and airy yet also seemingly liquid, allowing light. Portions of the plywood base are sunken or raised, and for the free mobility of his gelatinous undulating entities, edged wooden balls and acrylic and glass gems are applied to the with light and emanating light. The title of “light year” came surface – all tactile enactments of the explosive stuff of the after the fact, yet is suggestive of the cosmic space-time journeys Orion Nebula (which is astronomically known for its brown of forms of light through space. Amy Cheng’s generative sphere dwarf stars, protoplanetary discs, and supersonic “bullets” boldly fills her canvas. A celebratory budding core is of gas piercing the hydrogen clouds).10 Dark Matters - pink surrounded by spiral and circling configurations of dancing

8 pearls, moving out across the ethereal blue orb. She sums it up has been researched for decades as a safer and ultimately in the title that named the exhibition, I Am the Cosmos (2010). more plentiful source of energy than our current nuclear power plant fission mode.14 Functioning as both art and science, ENERGETIC PARTICLES Siler’s large drawings and his sculpture from his series, f the deep skies have offered a vast terrain of discoveries and Fractal Reactor: Re-Creating the Sun, visualize the core of a wonders, what about that equally vast subatomic terrain of fusion reactor, based on his original notion of using “fractal” I elementary particles of matter and energy? By 1939, atoms geometry15 for the magnets, which would irregularly compress had been both shattered and fused, and by the 1950s and and contain plasmas just as gravity does in the stars. This new 60s a bewildering array of subatomic particles had been “geometry of nature” contrasts with the idealized shapes and discovered as a result of experimental high-energy particle symmetry of Euclidean geometry, which is currently being used collisions. At first referred to as a “particle zoo,” these bits have for mainstream fusion design. By omitting the building-scaled been reduced since the l970s in the Standard Model of the internal and external support structures, Siler chose to visualize most elementary particles that combine to make the more directly the hot plasma reaction (i.e. of charged particles), complex. Artist Carter Hodgkin became interested in the strange activated by surrounding superconducting magnets and visual dramas of particle collisions. She manipulates the insulated by a lithium blanket. Three of his drawings envision computer codes that run virtual experiments, revealing explosive the hot shimmer and flow of the energy itself.16 Another encounters and trajectories. Using the codes, Hodgkin can vary drawing elegantly details parts and processes as a verbal/ factors, such as speed and gravity. The resulting ink jet prints visual display. Artist David Ambrose pictorially creates his own are the starting point for her invented poetic visions on canvas. sun in Mashriq (2008) (Mashriq is Arabic for “place of Her Grand Singularity (2009) is an anthropomorphic dance of sunrise”), by using his concentrated method of pierced paper, spiral spins and cascading paths of colored light particles on pooled watercolor and cell-like outlines. Serendipitously, the pitch-black ground of ink jet and paint. The “singularity” of a brilliant ball of energy emerges, suggesting the granulation the title signals the nobility of a single collision.12 In Particle of the rising and falling of fiery plasma within the mass of and Wave (1994), Dorothea Rockburne grapples with the particle the sun, similar to the naturalistic model that engendered physics concept that all elementary particles of mass and Siler’s conceptualizations. energy behave like both particles and waves (depending on the conditions and mode of measurement). Her personal EARTH FROM SPACE visualization is as telling and strange as the scientific concept. ur existence on this planet earth is precarious. We are Her spherical forms can be read on the particle level (as if living on the only, as yet discovered, cosmic body that photon or electron), and also at the level of cosmic bodies O can support life forms. First in the 1960s, then published (as if the sun). Circular fields of rotating energy, suggesting since the mid-l980s, photographs taken by astronauts of earth energy and mass particle densities, intersect each other. from space have been made available in book form and then Flowing through them, yet not quite identical with them, are on the NASA web site. As of November 1, 2010, the images undulating waves of activity — i.e., the configurations seem number 1,030,759 in the online archives.17 NASA has to be both particle and wave at the same time – a poetic recently deployed its Earth Observing System of low satellites to parallel to the science concept. But, as Rockburne says, track changes in land surface, biosphere, atmosphere and “the image is ultimately mysterious.”13 oceans for environmental purposes.

One artist/researcher works with the actual. Todd Siler’s The various images from all these sources have changed our conceptualizations for the development of a nuclear fusion sense of who and where we are and how we are going to energy system are being taken seriously by a group of cope with the drastic environmental changes underway. innovators within the fusion physics community. Fusion energy Longo’s Untitled (Bottom of the Earth, Antarctica) (2008) (shown

9 HYPERSPACE REALITIES “ yperspace” is a science fiction mode of space, co-existing with our own universe. Constituted of four or more H dimensions, circumventing the laws of physics, it may be entered through strange energy portals for faster-than-light space and time travel. Such is an apt naming of the reinvented space of much recent cosmic art, not only shattering the remnants of Euclidean three-dimensionality but also the four dimensions of faceted Cubism. Sarah Walker dissolves bits of mass into edged remnants of space and light, one layer over another, as if superimposed up over time and alternate dimensions. Technological grids and radically receding diagonals in Continental Drift (2010) thrust us into such layers ROBERT LONGO for futuristic otherworldly experiences, as much mental as untitled (Bottom of the Earth, Antarctica) (2008) physical. Ellen Levy’s object and energy elements are similarly gravity free, floating, intersecting, dissolving, near and far, and above) is one of a handful of his astonishing earth-in-space opening into deep space – all at the same time. Her images views, using such digital images as a starting point. Shown symbolically reference both the microscopic and the straight on from the bottom of the planet, suspended in black macroscopic. Techno elements tell of deconstructed space charcoal space, the image abstracts the dynamic swirling travel, microbiology, physics and outer space, presenting patterns of the dense clouds, ice and earth forms of our South semiological messages that provoke thought. On Imaging Pole. Such a view changes our sense of place. Tseng Yu has Coronas (2006), Levy inscribes “Corona Discharge Images,” created the painterly rhythms of aerially experienced forests, “Life Force Technologies” and “Coronavirus,” signaling different ice and sea since the l960s. Beginning in the 1980s, her forms uses and misuses of natural and industrial activity. For example, became more particularized, more natural. One finds a varied a “coronavirus” was the cause of the deadly SARS virus in Asia terrain of expressive deep sea, reef, glacier and forest flowing in 2003, while an electrical discharge, also called a “corona,” shapes, seemingly layered with air, clouds and weather – all can present mysterious streamers of light. Edged by shifting metamorphosing into each other (e.g., Forest Moss [Rain Forest luminous planes, diagonally crossed by corona discharge, Series], [1998]). We are suspended far above; yet participate Levy’s image opens up through floating space-station in the very processes of a poetic earth biosphere. Kwang-Young geometries into a deep black space, where a beautiful solar Chun thrusts us directly onto an invented barren planet/ corona shines forth through a dark eclipse. The viewer hovers moonscape in Aggregation 10-SE030 (2010). Created out within the hyperspace of all these elements. Such alternate of small Styrofoam polygons, covered with Korean herbal contemporary spaces give us a place to examine our culture’s medicinal papers, Chun’s multiple elements project in relief, science and technology trajectories. as if the rugged surface of rocks, mountains and perhaps precarious city towers. Deep dark craters are dug into the FUTURES support. Elements diminish in size toward the edges, suggesting class of artists has worked directly with current research a cosmically blasted orb. Reminding us further of our fragile that envisions new human frontiers in space. Human outer- existence is Matthew Ritchie’s I Hear We’re All Coming Back A space capabilities may be necessary for a thriving human (2003). Spindly, hopeful figures, arms raised, are floating future or even for survival of life as we know it. Astro-artist David on a horizontal terra (not so) firma within the vastness of Hardy has illustrated books by Patrick Moore, Arthur B. Clarke the universe. and Carl Sagan, among others, authentically picturing the sun,

110 planets, moons, asteroids and comets in ways that photographs research on the possibilities of intra-solar system travel, the have yet been able to record. He projects space travel that has mining of space objects (such as the moon, asteroids, comets yet to be possible, such as Soft Landing on a Comet (2004). and even other planets), human settlement in space and He also takes up such questions as the possibility of a near-time interstellar space probes. (See Bangs’ digital prints Orbital asteroid crash onto the earth, such as caused the extinction of Steam Locomotive (2005) and Raw Materials in Space dinosaurs twenty-five million years ago.18 C Bangs has directly (2009).19 Bangs’ images are provocatively symbolic and collaborated with NASA physicists, engineers and space accurate at the same time. Perhaps these futuristic possibilities scientists to help visualize their concepts. In collaboration with are – guardedly – our new frontier. • her astronomer husband, Gregory Matloff, and Les Johnson of NASA, she illustrated the book Living off the Land in Space: Sara Lynn Henry, Guest Curator Green Roads to the Cosmos (2007), which presents current

1 From the NASA Universe Forum, produced by the Harvard Smithsonian 12 The title also obliquely invokes the initial “singularity” of all particles and Center for Astrophysics, completed 2009, forces at the time of the Big Bang and found in black holes, though this http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/bb_popup_history2.htm. reference was not consciously intentional on the artist’s part.

2 Mark Whittle, Cosmology: The History and Nature of Our Universe, 13 Conversation with the curator, 9/11/10. Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 2008, Lecture Five. 14 Fusion energy involves the fusion of atomic nuclei to form a heavier nucleus, 3 Helpful for this account were: Ken Croswell, The Universe at Midnight, NY: releasing four to five times more energy than nuclear fission (our current mode The Free Press, 2001; Alex Flippenko, Understanding the Universe: An of splitting atoms). For fuel, fusion uses isotopes of hydrogen, which are found Introduction to Astronomy, Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company, 1998; Steve in seawater, plentifully available. The reactors are inherently safe and cannot Nadis, “Will Dark Energy, Steal the Stars,” Astronomy magazine, Nov. 2004, explode or meltdown. When accomplished fusion power could supply the 100-105; NASA website http://www.nasa.gov/; Colin A. Ronan, The world’s needs for millions of years. Todd Siler has been invited to present his Natural History of the Universe, N.Y. Macmillian Publishing Company, 1991; concepts for four international conferences regarding plasma fusion research. Mark Whittle, Cosmology: The History and Nature of Our Universe, Chantilly, His next step, working with collaborators, is to develop and test mathematical VA: The Teaching Company, 2008; plus correspondence with astronomer models for his concepts. Bob Berman. 15 “Fractal” refers to irregular patterns in nature, that are “self similar,” i.e. 4 According to the major theory, this may be an energy that is a property formed by the same random forces, resulting in similar shapes at many levels of space itself, i.e. the more space created by expansion, the more energy of magnification, but with individual differences. For example, a satellite view to press outward, therefore the whole movement keeps speeding up. of a coastline has a similar pattern as that of one small part of that coast.

5 It is predicted, for example, that our Milky Way and our closet neighbor 16 For a fuller account of Siler’s project, see his article in Leonardo, Journal of Andromeda Galaxy will likely merge in about 4.5 billion years, creating an Arts, Sciences and Technology (MIT Press), Vol. 40, Issue 3, June 2007, already named future spherical galaxy to be called “Milkomeda.” pp. 270-278. (Astronomer Bob Berman) 17 (The Earth from Space photo database is the easiest to access and search 6 Quoted in Russell Crotty, essay by David Frankel, Seattle, WA: by topic such as “Earth Landscapes,” “Hurricanes and Weather,” etc. Marquand Books, 2006, p. 15. (http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/efs/). For the most complete collection of photos, see “The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth,” 7 Ellen K. Levy, Decoding Metaphors for the 21st Century, Lawrenceville, N.J.; http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/ Rider University catalogue, 2009, p.4. 18 See Hardy’s web site, http://www.hardyart.demon.co.uk/pages-gallery/ 8 Unless footnoted, all quotes and comments are from interviews with the p-debrs1.html artists by the curator, September and October, 2010. 19 C Bangs had a NASA grant to create a holographic “message plaque” in 9 Quoted in Lowery Stokes Sims and Stephen Polcari, Richard Pousette-Dart 2001. During 2002-2004, she was a “Summer Faculty Fellow” at the NASA (1916-1991), N.Y.: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997, p. 13 from Marshall Spaceflight Center, Huntsville, Alabama. Gregory Matloff is an Pousette-Dart, Notebook B 158, dated by the artist 1960; this entry interstellar travel expert and NASA consultant. He has authored and dated Feb. 1964. co-authored eight books. His papers on interstellar travel, the search for 10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Nebula extraterrestrials, and Earth protection from asteroid impacts have been widely published. Les Johnson is Program Manager at the NASA Marshall 11 Yu’s image is an inspired transformation of a Hubble Image of M51, Space Flight Center. called the “Whirlpool Galaxy.”

111 12 PLATES 14 DAVID AMBROSE Mashriq 2008 watercolor and gouache on pierced paper, 10 ¾ x 8 ½ inches Courtesy of Private Collection, Woodstock, NY

15 ALICE AYCOCK Things Pass by in the Night: Murmuration 1 2009 from the On the Starry Night series ink, pencil and watercolor on paper, 61 x 61 inches Courtesy of the Artist and Salomon Contemporary, New York, NY

16 C B A N G S Raw Materials from Space 2009 digital collage, 14 x 20 inches Courtesy of the Artist

17 PA U L B R A C H Star Map 2005 oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches Courtesy of the Estate of Paul Brach and Flomenhaft Gallery, New York, NY

18 A M Y C H E N G I Am the Cosmos 2010 oil and wax on wood panel, 24 x 24 inches Courtesy of the Artist

19 KWANG-YOUNG CHUN Aggregation 10-SE030 2010 mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 90 x 64 ½ inches Courtesy of the Artist and Kim Foster Gallery, New York, NY

20 RUSSELL CROTTY M37 in Auriga 2008 ink and watercolor on paper, mounted on fiberglass sphere, 12 inch diameter Courtesy of Ben Evans, Los Angeles, CA

21 DAVID A. HARDY Soft Landing on a Comet 2004 from Futures: 50 Years in Space (2004) by David A. Hardy & Sir Patrick Moore digital print, 13 x 20 inches Courtesy of the Artist

22 CARTER HODGKIN Grand Singularity 2009 oil, enamel and ink on paper, 50 x 76 inches Courtesy of the Artist and Denise Bibro Fine Art, Inc., New York, NY

23 E L L E N L E V Y Imagining Coronas 2006 mixed media on panel, 60 x 40 inches Courtesy of the Artist and Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York, NY

24 ROBERT LONGO Untitled (Starfield #4) 2006 charcoal on mounted paper, 94 x 48 inches Courtesy of the Artist

25 D AV I D M A N N Light Year 2008 acrylic and oil on canvas stretched over board, 72 x 65 inches Courtesy of the Artist and McKenzie Fine Art, New York, NY

26 MATTHEW RITCHIE I Heard We’re All Coming Back 2003 felt tip pen and colored ink on transparentized paper, 12 x 48 inches Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection Gift, 2005

27 DOROTHEA ROCKBURNE Magellanic Magnification II 1994-98 colored pencil, charcoal, labels, conservator’s glue and papyrus on handmade paper, mounted on rag board, 50 x 41 inches Courtesy of Green Van Doren, New York, NY, and Rockburne Studio, New York, NY © 2011 Dorothea Rockburne/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

28 T O D D S I L E R Fractal Reactor: Re-Creating the Sun An Alternative Nuclear Fusion Energy System Based on Nature’s Fractal Geometry 2000 mixed media, 10 x 10 x 8 inches Courtesy of the Artist and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York

29 BARBARA TAKENAGA Last Blue Wheel 2008 acrylic on canvas, 70 x 60 inches Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York, NY

30 JOHN TORREANO A Star(s) Is Born 2007 acrylic, Krylon spray paint, acrylic gems, glass gems, wood and silicon on plywood, mounted on aluminum frames, 90 x 90 x 2 ¾ inches Courtesy of the Artist and Feature Inc., New York, NY

31 SARAH WALKER Continental Drift 2010 acrylic on panel, 36 x 38 inches Courtesy of the Artist and Pierogi Gallery, New York, NY

32 MARLENE TSENG YU Whirlpool 1 1996 from the Galaxy and Milky Way series acrylic on canvas, 96 x 168 inches Courtesy of the Artist

33 Armillary Sphere early to mid-19th century wood, steel, brass, papier-mâché and paper, 17 x 10 ¾ inches Courtesy of the E. Buk Collection, New York, NY

34 Hubble Captures View of “Mystic Mountain” February 1-2, 2010 digital print, size variable Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Hubble European Space Agency (ESA) and M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI) http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/entire/pr2010013a/from/show/

35 36 WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION

Dimensions are given in inches; height by width (or diameter) by depth, unless otherwise noted. Objects illustrated in this catalogue are indicated with an asterisk *

ART

DAVID AMBROSE RUSSELL CROTTY http://www.davidmambrose.com/wpaper.html http://russellcrotty.com Mashriq 2008 * M37 in Auriga 2008 * watercolor and gouache on pierced paper ink and watercolor on paper, mounted on fiberglass sphere 10 ¾ x 8 ½ 12 inch diameter Courtesy of Private Collection, Woodstock, NY Courtesy of Ben Evans, Los Angeles, CA

ALICE AYCOCK DAVID A. HARDY http://www.aaycock.com/drawings.html http://www.hardyart.demon.co.uk/html/main.html Things Pass by in the Night: Murmuration 1 2009 * Soft Landing on a Comet 2004 * from the On the Starry Night series from Futures: 50 Years in Space (2004) by ink, pencil and watercolor on paper David A. Hardy & Sir Patrick Moore 61 x 61 digital print Courtesy of the Artist and Salomon Contemporary, New York, NY 13 x 20 Courtesy of the Artist C B A N G S http://www.cbangs.com CARTER HODGKIN The Orbital Steam Locomotive 2005 http://www.carterhodgkin.com digital collage Grand Singularity 2009 * 14 x 20 oil, enamel and ink on paper Courtesy of the Artist 50 x 36 Courtesy of the Artist and Denise Bibro Fine Art, Inc., New York, NY Raw Materials from Space 2009 * digital collage E L L E N L E V Y 14 x 14 http://www.complexityart.com Courtesy of the Artist Imagining Coronas 2006 * mixed media on panel PA U L B R A C H 60 x 40 http://www.flomenhaftgallery.com/flomenhaft_gallery Courtesy of the Artist and Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York, NY _artists_biographies/paul_brach_artist_bio.php Star Map 2005 * ROBERT LONGO oil on canvas http://www.robertlongo.com 48 x 48 Untitled (Starfield #4) 2006 * Courtesy of the Estate of Paul Brach and charcoal on mounted paper Flomenhaft Gallery, New York, NY 94 x 48 Courtesy of the Artist A M Y C H E N G http://www.amychengstudio.com D AV I D M A N N I Am the Cosmos 2010 * http://www.mckenziefineart.com/artists/mann/mann.html oil and wax on wood panel Light Year 2008 * 24 x 24 acrylic and oil on canvas stretched over board Courtesy of the Artist 72 x 65 Courtesy of the Artist and McKenzie Fine Art, New York, NY KWANG-YOUNG CHUN http://www.chunkwangyoung.com MATTHEW RITCHIE Aggregation 10-SE030 2010 * http://www.artnet.com/artist/14305/matthew-ritchie.html mixed media with Korean mulberry paper I Heard We’re All Coming Back 2003 * 90 x 64 ½ felt tip pen and colored ink on transparentized paper Courtesy of the Artist and Kim Foster Gallery, New York, NY 12 x 48 Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection Gift, 2005

37 DOROTHEA ROCKBURNE BARBARA TAKENAGA http://www.dorothearockburne.com http://www.barbaratakenaga.com Particle and Wave 1994 Last Blue Wheel 2008 * flashe black and colored pencil on handmade paper, acrylic on canvas mounted on rag board 70 x 60 24 ¼ x 28 Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, New York Courtesy of Green Van Doren, New York, NY and Rockburne Studio, New York, NY JOHN TORREANO http://johntorreano.com/John_Torreano/Home.html Magellanic Magnification II 1994-98 * A Star(s) Is Born 2007 * colored pencil, charcoal, labels, conservator’s glue and acrylic, Krylon spray paint, acrylic gems, glass gems, wood papyrus on handmade paper, mounted on rag board and silicon on plywood, mounted on aluminum frames 50 x 41 90 x 90 x 2 ¾ Courtesy of Green Van Doren, New York, NY and Courtesy of the Artist and Feature Inc., New York, NY Rockburne Studio, New York, NY Orion’s Edge 2009 Copper, Paper Pulp and Dieu Donne #2 2003 acrylic, Krylon spray paint, acrylic gems, glass gems, wood paper pulp and paint on copper foil and silicon on plywood, mounted on aluminum frames 36 x 28 ½ 108 x 108 x 4 ¼ Courtesy of Green Van Doren, New York, NY and Courtesy of the Artist and Feature Inc., New York, NY Rockburne Studio, New York, NY Dark Matters - pink 2010 T O D D S I L E R acrylic, Krylon spray paint, acrylic gems, glass gems, wood http://www.toddsilerart.com and silicon on plywood, mounted on wood frames Fractal Reactor: Re-Creating the Sun 45 x 45 x 4 ½ An Alternative Nuclear Fusion Energy System Based on Courtesy of the Artist and Feature Inc., New York, NY Nature’s Fractal Geometry 2000 * mixed media SARAH WALKER 10 x 10 x 8 http://www.sarahwalker.org Courtesy of the Artist and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, NY Continental Drift 2010 * acrylic on panel Plasma Fusion Profile #1 2006 36 x 38 mixed media on paper Courtesy of the Artist and Pierogi Gallery, New York, NY 18 x 24 Courtesy of the Artist and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, NY MARLENE TSENG YU http://www.marlenetsengyu.com Plasma Fusion Profile #2 2006 Whirlpool 1 1996 * mixed media on paper from the Galaxy and Milky Way series 18 x 24 acrylic on canvas Courtesy of the Artist and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, NY 96 x 168 Courtesy of the Artist The Art of Simplicity? The Science of Complexity? Balancing the Plasmas Generated by the Fields Pressure Forest Moss 1998 from the Fractal Magnets 2006 from Rain Forest series mixed media on paper acrylic on paper 36 x 56 36 x 46 Courtesy of the Artist and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, NY Courtesy of the Artist

Fractal Reactor Nuclear Fusion Energy System (Artist Conception) 2009 Giclée print on Arches paper, mounted on compressed board 17 x 23 Courtesy of the Artist and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, NY

38 HISTORIC OBJECTS SPACE IMAGES

Armillary Sphere early to mid-19th century * Young Stars Sculpt Gas with Powerful Outflows in the Small Magel- wood, steel, brass, papier-mâché and paper lanic Cloud July 2004 17 x 10 ¾ digital print Courtesy of the E. Buk Collection, New York, NY Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Hubble European Space Agency (ESA) and A. Nota Barritt-Serviss Star and Planet Finder 1906 (STScI/ESA) US patent October 2, 1906 by Leon Barritt, http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/pr2005035a/npp/all/ Publisher, New York, NY papier-mâché, paper, metal binding eyelets and string Hubble Captures View of “Mystic Mountain” Feb. 1-2, 2010 * 15 x 15 digital print Courtesy of the E. Buk Collection, New York, NY Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Hubble European Space Agency (ESA) and M. Livio Tellurion c. early 20th century and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI) steel, brass, wood, papier-mâché and paper http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/entire/pr2010013a/from/sh 20 ¾ x 29 x 12 ow/ Courtesy of the E. Buk Collection, New York, NY The Core of Star Cluster Omega Centauri nd Bailey’s Astral Lantern 1881 digital print Franklin H. Bailey patent 1881 Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration manufactured by New England School Furnishing Company, Boston, (NASA), the Hubble European Space Agency (ESA) and the Hubble MA Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) sheet steel, wire, glass, paper star maps and scrolls Acknowledgements to A. Cool (San Francisco State University) and 20 x 17 x 17 J. Anderson (STScI) Courtesy of the E. Buk Collection, New York, NY http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/pr2008014a/from/show/

The Majestic Sombrero Galaxy (M104) May-June, 2003 digital print Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/pr2003028a/from/show/

A Grazing Encounter Between Two Spiral Galaxies (NGC 2207 and IC2163) nd digital print Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/entire/pr2004045a/from/sh ow/

Close-Up of Galaxies from the Hubble Deep Field Image nd digital print Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Hubble European Space Agency (ESA), S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/pr2004007h/

Saturn Aurora January 28, 2004 digital print Courtesy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Hubble European Space Agency (ESA), J. Clarke (Boston University) and Z. Levay (STScI) http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/pr2005006d/

39 SARA LYNN HENRY Guest Curator

Sara Lynn Henry is an independent curator, art writer, and Emerita Professor of Art History and N.E.H. Distinguished Teaching Professor of Humanities, Emerita, Drew University. She has curated major thematic exhibitions: As If Alive: Animate Sculpture for the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. (2000), Brave New Worlds: from Natural to Techno Universes for the Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Projects, Long Island City, Queens, New York (2005), and Midnight Full of Stars for the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey (2008). She also has curated several one-person and collection shows at Drew, including those of Joyce Scott, Lila Katzen, Hsu Dan, George Grosz Prints, and the Nancy Graves Donation. Her art writing includes essays on Robert Kushner, Ellen K. Levy, Suejin Jo, Alice Neel and Grace Bakst Wapner. As a scholar, she has published extensively on Paul Klee.

STAFF OF THE NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM

Eric Pryor, Executive Director

Mary Ann Argust, Principal Clerk Typist, Fine Art/Cultural History Elizabeth Beitel, Supervisor, Museum Exhibits Barbara Bower, Executive Assistant III, Administration Debra Budgick, Senior Clerk Typist, Archaeology and Ethnology/Natural History Marlene Chianese, Administrative Assistant II, Administration Nicholas Ciotola, Curator, Cultural History Janet Field, Technical Assistant I, Administration Karen A. Flinn, Assistant Curator, Archaeology and Ethnology Melissa Gabel, Clerk Typist, Exhibits Henry J. Hose, Preparator, Fine Art/Cultural History Kenn Jones, Curator, Education and Public Programs Richard Large, Model Maker I, Exhibits Gregory Lattanzi, Registrar, Archaeology and Ethnology Jenny Martin-Wicoff, Registrar, Fine Art/Cultural History Jerald Morris, Technical Assistant I, Education and Public Programs Margaret M. O’Reilly, Curator, Fine Art Rebecca Palumbo, Principal Clerk, Administration David C. Parris, Curator, Natural History Rodrigo Pellegrini, Registrar, Natural History Jason Schein, Assistant Curator, Collections and Exhibitions, Natural History Jay Schwartz, Assistant Curator, Planetarium, Natural History Jenaro Vazquez, Model Maker II, Exhibits Lynda Younger, Technical Assistant III, Administration

40 NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM 205 West State Street PO Box 530 Trenton, NJ 08625-0530 609-292-5420 (Fine Art Office) www.newjerseystatemuseum.org